The Power of Decisiveness for the Modern Man
First published on January 29, 2020
What am I called to write about, today? That is the question I sit with, in this moment, as I set the timer on my phone to 12 minutes, a blank document in front of me. And I listen. I'm listening not just for a thought, but for a feeling.
The feeling in question is intuition, guidance, creativity. It is also, strangely, the route to decisiveness.
Decisiveness has been on my mind recently. Several clients, all men, have talked about it in different ways over the past few months, at the start of or during our work together. It reminds me that my attitude to decisiveness has changed significantly over the last eight years or so, and undoubtedly for the better.
When asked for an opinion, I used to simply engage my mind. Being someone who has been through - and broadly succeeded in - the British education system, I am an excellent analyst. I can think through a problems from lots of angles. That means, asked for an opinon, my mind could provide a solid answer for both why someone should and why they should not make a particular choice. That can be useful for someone who wants help thinking something through, but it is not helpful if someone wants me to be decisive.
And there's a specific place that this is particularly damaging: in our romantic relationships. Traditionally, decisiveness and problem solving is a masculine trait. Our most masculine workplaces still prize it above almost anythign else. Indeed, for women who take part in those workplaces, this can - according to Dr John Gray's research - be part of the reason women find themselves stressed at work, overgenerating testosterone (and therefore undergenerating other hormones) from these kinds of activities.
In this case, when they get home, in order to develop the hormonal responses that will allow them to process their stress, what they don't need to be doing is continuing to use their decisive, masculine traits.
Added to that, way back in our history, women - being generally phsyically weaker than men - relied on the men around them to protect them. Now of course in the modern day, women almost never need literally protecting by men, but that doesn't mean all the systems designed to help them make sure they were protected by men have disappeared from their physiology and psychology. Often, one of the ways that women (subconsciously) judge whether they are protected by the man in their life is to sense whether he is competent and decisive.
So if, partly because of my education and partly because I believe that women and men are the same (which is different to being equal), when the woman in my life asks me for my opinion I simply summarise both sides, two things happen: she has to use her decisiveness, raising her testosterone levels and hindering her ability to reduce her stress, and she is not getting the sign form me that I am a competent person, ready and able to keep her safe, which then also raises her stress.
But - and many men here will know this - it isn't easy (and seems quite pointless) to offer an opinion, especially on something that fundamentally doesn't matter to us. And, obviously the women in our lives in the modern world don't want us to make all their decisions for them. Thankfully, the days where that used to happen are long gone. That, however, doesn't mean they don't ask for opinions, setting off this chain of events.
Here, instead, is what I learned:
1) Listen for that feeling. Practice it. Cultivate it. What is being asked of me right now? Listen for the slightest instinct. Which cafe should we go to? What shall we have for dinner? Without our instincts, we are foiled, trapped in endless and frustrating pros and cons. So learn to listen: if I had just the slightest instinct here, what would it be? And then try offering it as an opinion. See what happens. As time goes on, your ability to recognise those intuitions, to be decisive, will grow.
2) Specifically for men with the women in their life: if she asks your opinon, always offer one. But offer it skilfully: "My instinct is this.... but of course you know best in this situation." "If it were just up to me, I'd choose this... but what's your feeling?" There you go: giving her the opportunity to rely on your decision making if she chooses to AND showing her you are competent enough to make this choice (and keep her safe). But not trampling all over her freedom, strength, power or wisdom by presuming you know best.
Added to all that, being decisive, offering opinons, actually raises a man's testosterone levels. Increased testosterone is what allows men to relieve our stress. So you'll feel better as you learn to do it.
Decisiveness is a powerful tool, in our lives and particularly in our relationships. That's what I was called to write about today.